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Monday, October 28, 2013

Author: Maggie Plummer

I'm so excited that Romance author, Maggie Plummer has
stopped by for a visit. Please welcome this
very busy author.

Welcome Maggie.
Please tell us a little about yourself.

I am a writer and
editor from northwest Montana. Along the winding trail to becoming a novelist,
I have worked as a journalist, book publicist, census enumerator, school bus
driver, field interviewer, waitress, post office clerk, fish processor, library
clerk, retail salesperson, Good Humor (ice cream) girl, fishing boat first
mate, race horse hot walker, apple picker, and bus girl. My first book was a
non-fiction work entitled Passing It On:
Voices from the Flathead Indian Reservation, published in 2008 by Salish
Kootenai College Press (Pablo, Montana). Spirited
Away – A Novel of the Stolen Irish is my first published novel.

That's amazing. You are a Jack (or Jill) of all trades! For new readers—what can they expect when
they read your book(s)?

Readers tell me that my novel is a fast read, a page-turner, that opens
their eyes about some very important history they’d never heard of.

What
a great quality. How do you balance
writing with the rest of your life?

Balance, now there is a goal. I try to put in
several hours of writing first thing in the morning, while I have energy. Then,
later in the day, I feel free to goof off.

Hehe. Now that's a plan! We'd love to hear about your writing space.

I write on a laptop computer, in a recliner
part of the time, and at my desk part of the time. I have converted a corner of
my dining room into an office space. I live alone, and prefer to have my
“office” in the midst of the main house, rather than tucked away in a separate
room.

I'm
with you on that one. What you are most
passionate about outside of writing?

I would say animal welfare. I hate animal
suffering.

You're very kind. What genre(s) do you write? Why do you write
the stories that you write?

Spirited
Away – A Novel of the Stolen Irish is
historical fiction.

I began working on it in late 2008, after reading the history section of an Irish travel
guidebook and stumbling across this information: During Oliver Cromwell's Reign of Terror in
the 1650s, a majority of Ireland's Catholic population was slaughtered, exiled
to the west, or sold into slavery in the Caribbean.

I did a triple-take,
amazed. How could it be that I'd never heard of that?

I asked around, and no
one else had heard of it either.

The more I read about
Cromwell's Reign of Terror in books and Internet articles, the hotter my
Irish-American blood boiled. These massacred, ousted, or enslaved people were
my ancestors.

I knew I had to write
something about this obscure yet pivotal period of Irish history.

That is how Spirited Away: A Novel of the Stolen Irish
came to be. While it is a work of fiction, the book is based on historical
accounts of events that took place.

Why
did I write this novel? I wrote and self-published it because I feel that Irish
slavery was an atrocity that should not be forgotten. I find it outrageous that so few know about it.

I hope that my novel
will help bring this fascinating, neglected history to light.

In 1649 Cromwell led an
invasion of Ireland that many historians call ethnic cleansing. During the
1650s, Ireland lost about 41 percent of its population. The infamous Irish
Famine of 1845 to 1852, by comparison, resulted in a loss of 16 percent of the
population.

Cromwell hated Catholicism.
Not only was the religion banned, its priests were wanted men. Irish Catholics
were murdered, thrown off their land, or "spirited away" to the
Caribbean. Irish
armies were sent to Europe, leaving behind a massive number of destitute women
and children who fled to Connaught, exiled, landless, and with no means of
support. Another order proclaimed that since Irish women were now too numerous,
and since they were now exposed to prostitution, they could be sold to
merchants and transported to Virginia and the West Indies, where they could
work to support themselves. Well-paid agents roved the countryside on
horseback, rounding up Irish women and children with large whips and driving
them like cattle to port cities where they were shackled and loaded onto slave
ships.

An estimated 100,000 Irish
people, mostly women and children, were sold to
New World plantation owners. In the English colony of Barbados, many of them
were literally worked to death. Some were flogged to death. They toiled long days and suffered
horrific conditions, disease, starvation, and torture.

"The curse of Cromwell upon you" is still a popular
Irish saying. To this day, Irish mothers threaten their misbehaving children
with the ultimate punishment: "Cromwell's going to get you!" The
bitterness caused by what took place during the 1650s has been a powerful
source of Irish nationalism for more than 350 years.

How horrible. I
share your passion (and heritage). Do
your characters come to you first, or the plot, or the world of the story?

The brutal
world of this novel came to me first, as I learned about Cromwell’s Reign of
Terror in Ireland.

What
sets your books apart from other authors’ books?

My novel tells a unique
historical tale that most people have never heard of, and takes the reader
right into protagonist Freddy’s experiences – both horrific and heartwarming.

How do you go about developing your characters?

For this
novel, I did tons of research and imagined what Irish slave life would have
been like on a Barbados sugar plantation in the 1650s. I mixed in my own Irish
ancestry, and wrote out character descriptions designed to bring this
compelling story to life as dramatically and intimately as possible.

Out of all the characters that you've written, who
is your favorite and why?

Freddy
O’Brennan, definitely. She is magnificent yet flawed, with a strong spirit that
refuses to be broken.

Can
you share a little of your current work?

Sure! Here is a short
excerpt from the novel’s sequel, which I am currently writing:

“The gale roared down on them from the west, tossing the Alizé every which way. Colin braced himself,
hugged the mast with his good arm, and nodded to Johnny. The first officer
looped a thick rope around Colin’s waist and tied the other end around the base
of the mast. The sloop yawed with a wild jerk. Once more cursing his lame arm,
Colin knew he was helpless to do anything but watch sheets of horizontal rain
wash over them as the men scurried to batten her down. Johnny had tried to make
him stay in his bunk, but Colin was having none of it. He shook the rain from
his eyes.

““The damned wind picks up!” Johnny leaned in close, but
kept his eyes trained on the bow. Colin followed Johnny’s watchful gaze. The
massive bowsprit had vanished into the side of a twenty-foot wave. “I say we
lie her a-hull! We’ve sea-room and she’ll drift out.”

““Aye, bare the poles!”

“Johnny hollered to the men. Some of them untied
themselves to clamber aloft, a right dangerous business in wicked seas. Colin
closed his eyes and rested his cheek against the solid mast, tightening his
grip on it. Above him the shrouds groaned under their load and the wind sang a
mournful, high-pitched dirge in the rigging. Dear Lord, keep the men safe,
Colin prayed, let ‘er hold. Jesus, don’t let the storm get any heavier. It was
not hurricane season and, he reasoned, the sixty-foot sloop had saved their
hides again and again. Sure she was small for such a gale, but he knew her to
be seaworthy. Hadn't she always carried them to safety? She had, she had.

“The men secured her and, as best they could, pointed her
into the teeth of the storm. Earlier they had hauled in the dinghy, which
usually bobbed along behind them. They had carried heavy ropes up from below
and tied the ends to the mast. If it got worse they would use ‘em to undergird
the sloop, to strengthen her against the waves.

“A line snapped far above, and the topsail began flapping
hard enough to break the topmast. Owyn was aloft, tying the course tight to the
gaff. He yelled something down, but the wind made it impossible to hear. The
youngster pointed to the topsail, and Johnny nodded.

““Take care, lad!” Colin and Johnny bellowed. But it had
to be done. That sail had to be cut away.

“Owyn didn’t hesitate. He scrambled all the way up to the
topsail yard, held himself steady with his legs and one arm, and slashed at the
topsail rigging. Suddenly the yard snapped, whipped around in the wind, and
whacked him in the head just as the Alizé
plunged into the bottom of a trough. Owyn disappeared as he was thrown off and
swept away.

““OWYN!” Colin shouted, frantic. Johnny, in the fo'c'sle helping with the staysail,
had not seen nor heard. Colin used the slack in his rope to slide on his
backside down the lurching deck, toward the rail. “OWYN!” he yelled again, as
loud as he could, searching the angry gray sea for any sign of the lad. There
was nothing. He struggled to his feet and peered through the driving rain at
the sea behind them. Nothing.

“The sloop pitched hard, slamming Colin into the mast.
White pain seared through his bad arm. The wind’s wail faded to a murmur and
his vision dimmed, until all was silent and dark.”

Where
can readers find more information on you?

I hope to have my author website finished soon. Above, I
listed the link to my Amazon Author Page. Also, I have a Facebook author page
and can be found on Twitter. Here are the links:

https://www.facebook.com/SpiritedAwayANovelOfTheStolenIrish

https://twitter.com/maggiep1951

Spirited Away - A Novel
of the Stolen Irish
is a 60,000-word historical novel that paints an intimate, compelling portrait
of 1650s Irish slavery in the Caribbean.

The
novel currentlyhas 83 five-star
reviews (a total of 162 reviews, with an average 4.2 stars).

Here
is a description:

In
May 1653, fourteen-year-old Freddy O’Brennan trusts the wrong stranger on an
empty beach in western Ireland and inadvertently places herself in the
crosshairs of Cromwell’s notorious Reign of Terror.

Freddy
awakens in the cramped hold of a slave ship bound for Barbados. Ripped from her
loved ones, she endures a gruesome voyage and a vile auction. Freddy, sold to
the highest bidder, alone, and far from her beloved homeland, faces the brutal
realities of life as a female Irish slave on a seventeenth century Barbados
plantation. Amidst the island's treacherous beauty, she must find a way to bear
her cruel, drunken Master using her as a breeding slave and kitchen drudge.

Heartsick
with yearning for her family and the farm life she knew, Freddy reaches deep
inside herself for the strength she needs to protect her young spirit from
being broken. As she struggles to survive, she risks everything for the sake of
loyal friendship and love.

4 comments:

Maggie, I read about Cromwell's rampage through Ireland but did not know about the Irish who were sent into exile. It's a terrible travesty, one of many suffered by the Irish at the hands of English invaders. I deeply admire you for tackling this heart wrenching subject. I also like the excerpt from your WIP. Very dramatic!

thank you so much, Susan, Lyn, and Margaret! I love hearing from you on here and, Margaret, I sure hope you're right about the sequel being equally good. I'm in the thick of it these days. thanks again for the comments!